How a McCain family photo becomes a political defense

We wrote the other day about the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain preparing for any subversive attacks in South Carolina by forming a "truth squad" of supporters who will pounce on any rumors, push-polls or erroneous claims or mailings.

The preparations come from a painful lesson in 2000 when the Arizona Republican came roaring out of a 19-point win in New Hampshire and ran into an unfriendly conservative environment in South Carolina where some opponents employed dirty tricks, including spreading rumors that McCain had fathered a black child.

But, it turns out, there's another proactive preparation the McCains are taking this time around. They are actively mailing out thousands of copies of a photograph of Cindy McCain cradling their "black" daughter, Bridget, a dark-skinned orphan the McCains adopted from an orphanage of Mother Teresa's in Bangladesh in 1993. The couple have worked actively to promote adoption by others since then.

-- Andrew Malcolm